More of the Gold Coast

Todd's co-working, Lara, was kind enough to lend us her car for this weekend. We weren't planning to do much this weekend, but thought it would be a shame not to take advantage of our new transportation for the weekend. Springbrook National Park is pretty remote and not accessible by bus or train so I thought we would take a trip there and go for a nice picnic lunch and hiking for the day. The area of the park where we went is about 110 km southwest from Brisbane. It took us a while to actually get to our final desitnation, the natural arch waterfall, since there were so many great places to stop along the way. The highway was really fast and easy to drive, 4-5 unusually wide lanes across all the way down to the coast. It's a big highway that is very well travelled, especially on the weekends. Once we got off the highway though, the scenic drive going to the drive was a bit more difficult. The road was very windy and narrow and only one lane at the bridge crossings. Todd got to sit back and relax, enjoying the beautiful scenery while I tried not to drive us off the edge of the cliff.

We actually didn't realize how close the boarder to the next state was until we looked at a map in the park. We had driven down to the very bottom of Queensland near the boarder of New South Whales in under 2 hours. We stopped at the natural arch waterfall for a while and admired its beauty. Todd went for a swim while I contemplated testing out the waters, but decided it was too cold. We finished the short walking loop around the falls and got bored of that area. We had set out to go hiking all around that area yesterday, but it was a pretty warm day, 27C, and we had been driving around in the car without a/c all morning so we didn't try very hard to look for more trails to explore. Instead, we decided to drive out to the coast again, go for a swim in the ocean and relax on the beach. We drove over to Broadbeach and down the coast line passing by Mermaid Beach and Nobby Beach before we decided to stop at Miami Beach for some R&R. It was pretty windy down there and not as warm as we thought it would be, but beautiful as always. This time it was my turn to go for a swim while Todd tool pictures of me playing in the waves. The water was great, a bit chilly in the beginning, but it warmed up once I got used to it. I got in trouble for not swimming the proper swimming area that is patrolled by the life guards on duty. Apparently the area where I was had a very dangerous undertow that could suck me right under the water and take me away. So I decided to just get out of the water and lay in the sun with Todd. We took another drive down the coast a bit to Burleigh Heads and then turned around to go home. We had had enough of the beach for the day. It's funny how there are so many different beaches along the coast but they are all the same big long beach to us. Maybe next time we will venture further south into NSW where the beaches are supposed to be more beautiful and less populated or up to the north for a change. Actually Todd and I are going back up to Noosa in the beginning of November. Todd will be working at a conference up there while I relax on the beach and surf all day :) Ahhh life's tough down here in Australia....

lifesaving helicopter patrolling the waters